Re: Doubts about PPA in Debian
On 05/07/2013 12:23 PM, Adrian Alves wrote:
> Why I vote NO for ppa in Debian,
>
> Something that everybody loves about debian is you have everything in
> one repo for stable testing or development, the use of PPA it couse
> things like happens in ubuntu when u need something important you need
> to install it from a PPA because is not in the repo thats not the case
> in debian, always happens this kind of scenarios:
>
> - in ubuntu I need this important app OH no is not in the main repo
> look for a PPA and then add it but probably some day you will see it
> on the main repos, how a user it will look or find this app in a PPA
> you need another PPA for a tool that search in the PPA, but th
> In other words when u need something importante in debian u can look
> at it just one apt but in ubuntu u need to look or search for a PPA
> crossing the fingers to find it
> - and when that app gonna be pushed into the mains repos?, in ubuntu
> some pkgs lives forever in PPA and never reach the main repo.
> - all the efforts of the developer to push apps into the mains debian
> repo like main contrib and non-free it will be affected because now
> all the new things gonna need to be pushed from PPA into mains repos?
> - something that everybody loves from debian is u have everything in
> one like at source.list
> -and debian is not ubuntu in other way ubuntu is debian
>
> am not saying PPA is bad just worried about not to lose the magic of
> debian who has everything in one place.
>
> Regards, Adrian.-
I think you are mistaking a lot here.
The problem with Debian, is that it has a defined release schedule. When
upstream has a completely different release schedule, like this is the
case for OpenStack which I work on, it is quite a nightmare. The stable
release, code name Essex, was released last year in April. It made it
before the freeze last June. Upstream release every 6 months, and
maintains only the last 2 releases. Wheezy went out last week end, but
the version of OpenStack Essex is now deprecated and not supported
upstream. So I am left with no upstream support, and I have to do the
backport of security patches myself. That is a nightmare for me. I
already regrets that I didn't ask for the removal of Essex from Wheezy
before it was released (can this be requested now?).
Now, if I had PPA, then I could follow upstream release cycles. Every 6
months, I would destroy the PPA for OpenStack stable -2, and create a
new stable PPA. I could put all the backport software I need in there.
No need to worry anymore about the release cycles not in sync with what
we do in Debian. Since most things are Python, I could still continue to
upload the modules into SID (or Experimental during the freeze), and as
the brilliant plan for the Debian PPA will not add duplication, it will
be "for free", just giving a list of packages that I wish to import.
Having the OpenStack packages never reach the main repo is exactly what
I, and our users, will need. As I understand, the PPAMAIN will be 100%
considered part of Debian, even sharing the same pool thing, and that is
a very good thing.
So here, PPA will really be much much much better for me, and match my
use case. I really thank and salute the effort of designing it, and I am
100% convince that it will be perfect for my use case. I also quite like
the rules which have been listed (though probably that's a bit too much
rules, and I would have like better something a bit more "free for all",
but I understand the incentive behind them).
The PPAMAIN design, are quite different from what we've seen in Ubuntu.
I don't think it is relevant to compare.
Also, even if I do understand your concern, and that we should push
everyone to upload in the main repository of Debian whenever possible,
this doesn't fit all use cases.
Cheers,
Thomas
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